Negotiating Bumper Stickers

My old gaming bumper stickers on the Wrangler are finally peeling off the bumper, and the time has come to replace them. I picked up the old stickers at GenCon in 2001, and they were pure geekery: “Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow”, “Why Choose The Lesser of Two Evils? Vote Cthulhu!” and “The DM is always right. Cruel and sadistic, but always right”.

Working at a university, they provided a nice contrast to some of the more … politically eccentric … bumper stickers peppering the mini-vans, SUVs and cars. Unfortunately, while I loved them, Sue was less than thrilled. She occasionally substitutes in the local schools and teaches wilderness education at an environmental center in New Jersey, and my bumper stickers occasionally drew curious (perhaps disturbed?) looks when she had to drive my car. After all, in today’s climate, a bumper sticker promoting “Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow” is probably enough to get a kid kicked out of high school. And no one but a Lovecraft fan is going to get the Cthulhu bumper sticker.

So the search — and negotiations — for new bumper stickers have begun. I think the basic criteria include a) nothing with the word “evil” in it b) nothing dealing with unspeakable horrors running for public office and c) nothing that mentions strip-mining the planet (one of my favorite bumper stickers is: “Earth First: We’ll Strip-mine the Other Planets Later!” but Sue understandable doesn’t want that one on a car she might take to teach environmental ed).

One bumper sticker I’d like to get is “Who is John Galt?” which will probably confuse as many people as the Cthulhu one did, but hey, it’s good to challenge people’s brains right? I’m also thinking of replacing my Darwin fish with a Cthulhu fish (the Cthulhu fish is like the Jesus fish, but has tentacles where its head should be — interestingly, Sue finds this one amusing.

I’m not sure about the others — I’ve got room for two more, and I suspect they’ll be something pretty damn geeky. Suggestions are always welcome, so feel free to leave a comment or three.

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Nuketown is a speculative fiction website that's been published continuously since 1996.

It's publishing focus is articles, reviews and editorials about science fiction, fantasy, and horror with heroic or libertarian overtones. It covers a variety of topics within the speculative fiction genre, including games, movies, soundtracks, books, and websites.